fly

To travel through the air, another gas, or a vacuum, without being in contact with a grounded surface.

Adjective

  1. Quick-witted, alert, mentally sharp.
    • be assured, O man of sin—pilferer of small wares and petty larcener—that there is an eye within keenly glancing from some loophole contrived between accordions and tin breastplates that watches your every movement, and...
  2. Clandestine, surreptitious
    • Some say God was an alien that tampered with our DNA, the 3 kings followed ufos & Mary had a fly shag 🤔🤫 - 2023 December 1, @Davo_Mack, Twitter:
  3. Well dressed, smart in appearance; in style, cool.
    • He's pretty fly.
    • when Ortega got fixed up in his fly duds like that, an ord'nary man's overcoat wouldn't make 'im a pair o' socks. - 1888, Frederick Thickstun Clark, A Mexican Girl, page 270:
    • Give it to me, baby! Uh huh, uh huh! And all the girlies say, I’m pretty fly for a white guy. - 1998, “Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)”performed by The Offspring:
  4. Beautiful; displaying physical beauty.
    • [Rahiem] My name brings peace and tranquility / So all the fly ladies' hearts can run free - 1979, “We Rap More Mellow”, performed by The Younger Generation:
    • Word is bond she looked divine, she looked as fly as can be I thought she was different cause she was by herself She looked real wholesome, and in good physical health - 1991, “Busy Doin Nuthin”, in I Need a Haircut,...
    • I rap for listeners, blunt heads, fly ladies and prisoners - 1994, “Memory Lane (Sittin’ in da Park)”, in Illmatic, performed by Nas:

Origin

Uncertain; probably from the verb or noun.

Forms

flier flyer fliest flyest

Derived

flycop flyness

Noun obsolete

  1. The action of flying; flight.
  2. An act of flying.
    • There was a good wind, so I decided to give the kite a fly.
  3. A fly ball.
  4. Ellipsis of fly route.
  5. A piece of canvas that covers the opening at the front of a tent.
  6. The sloping or roof part of the canvas of a tent.
    • [T]he main part of the operation of pitching the tent, consisting of raising the flies, may be performed, and shelter afforded, without the walls, &c., being present. - 1810, Thomas H. Williamson, The East India...
    • The cavalcade drew up in line, / Pitch'd the marquee, and went to dine. / The bearers and the servants lie / Under the shelter of the fly. - 1816, The Grand Master, or Adventures of Qui Hi, page 152:
    • After I had changed my riding-habit for my one other gown, I came out to join the general under the tent-fly. - 1885, Elizabeth Bacon Custer, Boots and Saddles:
  7. A strip of material (sometimes hiding zippers or buttons) at the front of a pair of trousers, pants, underpants, bootees, etc.
    • Ha-ha! Your fly's undone!
    • February 2014 Y-Front Fly Y-Front is a registered trademark for a special front fly turned upside down to form a Y owned by Jockey® International. The first Y-Front® brief was created by Jockey® more than 70 years ago.
    • June 2014 The Hole In Men’s Underwear: Name And Purpose Briefs were given an opening in the front. The point of this opening (the ‘fly’) was to make it easier to pee with clothes on
  8. The moving portion of an extendable ladder.
  9. The free edge of a flag.
  10. The horizontal length of a flag.
  11. An exercise that involves wide opening and closing of the arms perpendicular to the shoulders.
  12. The part of a weather vane pointing the direction from which the wind blows.

Origin

From Middle English flye (“flying, flight”), from Old English flyġe (“flying, flight”), from Proto-Germanic *flugiz.

Forms

flys flies

Derived

big fly fly ash fly ball fly-coach fly half flyhawk flyman flyperson fly system fly window infield fly infield fly rule keyhole fly no-fly no-fly list no fly list no-fly zone on the fly on-the-fly pop fly

Noun biology, natural sciences

  1. Any insect of the order Diptera; characterized by having two wings (except for some wingless species), also called true flies.
    • Devils Lake is where I began my career as a limnologist in 1964, studying the lake’s neotenic salamanders and chironomids, or midge flies. […] The Devils Lake Basin is an endorheic, or closed, basin covering about 9,800...
  2. Especially, any of the insects of the family Muscidae, such as the common housefly (other families of Diptera include mosquitoes and midges).
    • When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose. And the queerer the cure for those ailings the bigger the attraction. A place like...
    • October in Orania can be charming. When the sun sets, long ribbons of burnt orange settle on the horizon. The flies and mosquitoes that come with the oppressive summer heat haven’t arrived yet. It is Magdalene...
  3. Those or any similar but not closely related insect, such as a dragonfly, butterfly, or gallfly.
  4. A lightweight fishing lure resembling an insect.
    • I went on trying for fish along the western bank down the river, but only small trout rose at my flies, and a score was the total catch. - 1886, Peter Christen Asbjø￵rnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy...
  5. A chest exercise performed by moving extended arms from the sides to in front of the chest. (also flye)
  6. The butterfly stroke (plural is normally flys).
  7. A witch's familiar.
    • a trifling fly, none of your great familiars - 1610 (first performance), Ben[jamin] Jonson, The Alchemist, London: […] Thomas Snodham, for Walter Burre, and are to be sold by Iohn Stepneth, […], published 1612, →OCLC,...
  8. A parasite.
    • The fly that plays too near the flame burns in it. - 1636, Philip Massinger, “The Bashful Lover”, in William Gifford, editor, The Plays of Philip Massinger, published 1845, act 1, scene 1, page 470:
  9. A simple dance in which the hands are shaken in the air, popular in the 1960s.
  10. A butterfly (combination of four options).

Origin

From Middle English flye, flie, from Old English flȳġe, flēoge (“a fly”), from Proto-West Germanic *fleugā, from Proto-Germanic *fleugǭ (“a fly”), from Proto-Indo-European *plewk- (“to fly”). Cognate with Scots flee, Saterland Frisian Fljooge, Dutch vlieg, German Low German Fleeg, German Fliege, Danish flue, Norwegian Bokmål flue, Norwegian Nynorsk fluge, Swedish fluga, Icelandic fluga.

Forms

flies

Hyponyms

barfly blackfly blowfly blue-banded eggfly botfly butterfly cabbage root fly caddis fly cranefly damselfly dragonfly drain fly firefly fly-eyed fruit fly gadfly grape fly greenfly horn fly horsefly housefly hoverfly march fly mayfly

Derived

a closed mouth catches no flies adder fly alderfly alkali fly and no flies antifly apple fly assassin fly awl-fly banana fly bar fly bat fly bee fly beetfly Bill Gates' flower fly black fly blind-fly blister fly blow fly blue fly bobfly bot fly bottlefly break a fly on a wheel

Noun Northern England, Scotland

  1. A wing.
    • The bullet barely grazed the wild fowl's fly.

Origin

Related to German Flügel (“a wing”), Dutch vleugel (“a wing”), Swedish flygel (“a wing”).

Forms

flies

Noun alt of, alternative

  1. Alternative form of vly (“swamp (in New York)”).
    • June 8, 1708, John Cock and William Nottingham desire 100 acres each [...] Isaac Davis desied a conveyance for the "greenbush" fly or swamp that he hath drained near his land, in the Jaagh Creupel-bosh. - 1880,...
    • […] one certain Lot of the Long fly, or swamp situate lying and being [in] the Township of Flatlands […] recorded June 15, 1876, Liber 1244 of Conveyances, at page 494, Kings County. The "East Division" was the Long...
    • […] to a white maple stake standing in a fly or swamp , thence N [...] to a Hemlock Stake, […] - 1961, William Gideon Closson, The Josiah Closson Family of New England, page 110:

Forms

flies

Verb Entry 6

  1. To travel through the air, another gas, or a vacuum, without being in contact with a grounded surface.
    • Birds of passage fly to warmer regions as it gets colder in winter.
    • The Concorde flew from Paris to New York faster than any other passenger airplane.
    • It takes about eleven hours to fly from Frankfurt to Hong Kong.

    Synonyms: flutter

  2. To flee, to escape (from).
    • Fly, my lord! The enemy are upon us!
    • [V]pon a ſodaine, / As Falſtaffe, ſhe, and I, are newly met, / Let them [children dressed like "urchins, ouphes and fairies"] from forth a ſaw-pit ruſh at once / With ſome diffuſed ſong: Vpon their ſight / We two, in...
    • to fly the favours of so good a king - c. 1604–1605 (date written), William Shakespeare, “All’s Well, that Ends Well”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
  3. To cause to fly (travel or float in the air): to transport via air or the like.
    • Charles Lindbergh flew his airplane The Spirit of St. Louis across the Atlantic ocean.
    • Why don’t you go outside and fly kites, kids? The wind is just perfect.
    • Birds fly their prey to their nest to feed it to their young.
  4. To travel or proceed very fast; to hasten.
    • He flew down the hill on his bicycle.
    • It's five o'clock already. Doesn't time fly?
    • Fly, envious Time, till thou run out thy race. - 1645, John Milton, On Time:
  5. To move suddenly, or with violence; to do an act suddenly or swiftly.
    • a door flies open
    • a bomb flies apart
    • And in respect of the great necessity there is, my darling, for more employments being within the reach of Woman than our civilisation has as yet assigned to her, don’t fly at the unfortunate men, even those men who are...
  6. To proceed with great success.
    • His career is really flying at the moment.
    • One moment the company was flying high, the next it was on its knees.
  7. To be accepted, come about or work out.
    • Let's see if that idea flies.
    • You know, I just don't think that's going to fly. Why don't you spend your time on something better?
  8. To display (a flag) on a flagpole.
  9. To hunt with a hawk.
    • We'll fly the partridge, or go rouse the deer. - c. 1590, Robert Greene, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay:
  10. To be in the winged adult stage.
    • This species flies from late summer until frost.

Origin

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *plew- Proto-Indo-European *plewk- Proto-Indo-European *-eti Proto-Indo-European *pléwketi Proto-Germanic *fleuganą Proto-West Germanic *fleugan Old English flēogan Middle English fliender. English fly From Middle English flien, from Old English flēogan, from Proto-West Germanic *fleugan, from Proto-Germanic *fleuganą, from Proto-Indo-European *plewk- (*plew-k-, “to fly”), enlargement of *plew- (“flow”). Compare Etymology 1. See also Saterland Frisian fljooge, Dutch vliegen, Low German flegen, German fliegen, Danish flyve, Norwegian Nynorsk flyga; also Lithuanian plaũkti ‘to swim’). More at flee and flow.

Forms

flies flying flew flown no-table-tags glossary fly fliest flyest flewest flieth flyeth -

Synonyms

soar hover wing skim glide ascend rise float aviate escape flee abscond dart flit hurry zoom

Antonyms

walk remain stay

Hyponyms

fly a kite flying cone fly into a rage fly like a bird fly like a rock fly like the wind fly off the handle fly out the window fly solo overfly

Related

fly agaric flight

Derived

afly as the crow flies as the gull flies as the raven flies backspot flying fish befly build the plane while flying it could eat the arse out of a low flying duck could eat the crotch out of a low flying duck could eat the crutch from a low flying duck don't drive faster than your guardian angel can fly fill and fly flag-flying flyable fly a desk fly and flop fly apart fly at flyaway flyback fly baker flybar fly blind fly bomb

Verb ball games, baseball

  1. To hit a fly ball; to hit a fly ball that is caught for an out. Compare ground (verb) and line (verb).
    • Jones flied to right in his last at-bat.

Forms

flies flying flied